Today the Skye branch of the Scottish Wildlife Trust had a
fungus foray, led by expert mycologists Ernest and Valerie Emmett. So
for once I am able to put a name to most of the day's fungus photos, at least to genus
level. On the other hand, the photo quality is not up to much, as fungi
were being found so fast that I could not spend a lot of time on any given
one.

A few of these species have been shown on the site
before, but I include them anyway in case anyone who was on the foray is
interested to have a reminder of what we saw. The ones on these pages are all the ones I
took pics of; many other species were found.

We were in the Kinloch woods in Sleat, and were
allowed to explore the grounds of the
Kinloch Lodge Hotel
by kind permission of the owners. The fungi are shown more or less in the
order in which they were found, apart from some slight adjustments to fit the
pictures on the page. Any mistakes in identification are my own.
There were different groups of people looking at different things at the same
time and it was possible to get confused!

First up is the Yellowleg Bonnet, Mycena epipterygia.
The cap of this fungus has a skin which can be completely peeled off. Also
the edge of each gill can be pulled away as a thread if you insert a pin under
it. The small yellow one in the middle picture is uncertain. It may be Clavulinopsis
luteo-alba but you would not expect the white base. Or it may be a small
specimen of Clavaria argillacea. It was too young to give any spores.
The one on the right is the Butter Cap, Rhodocollybia butyracea, with a sticky
cap surface and gills almost free from the stem. A useful distinguishing
feature of Collybias and their allies is that you can twist the stem without
breaking it (though there are some other fungi that have this property).

On the left is a Hebeloma species, possibly Poison Pie, H
crustuliniforme. We were shown how the gills were spotted by water which
is clear when it first oozes out of them but then collects the dark brown
spores. The fungus was under Eared Willow and had the remains of a cortina
on the stem. On the right is an Entoloma species with pink spores and pink
areas on the gills. It could not be identified to species.

Several kinds of Lactarius were found. The first and the most frequent
was L torminosus, the Woolly Milk-cap; a young specimen is shown on the left.
The other two pictures are of an Ascomycete or Cup-fungus, Helvella macropus,
which was growing at the foot of a birch tree.

This big white rough-surfaced Lactarius is the Fleecy Milk-cap,
L vellereus. The copper-coloured fungus on a birch branch is Polyporus
varius.

The Sheathed Woodtuft (Kuehneromyces mutabilis), which we've had
before on the site, was showing well on this old stump. On the right is
another fungus with clusters of overlapping heads, a Cortinarius species of the
Telamonia group.

We now arrived at the Hotel and found these three species close to trees in
grassy bits of the garden. The first is a kind of Honey Fungus, probably
Armillaria bulbosa but possibly A ostoyae. We saw how the gills are
protected by a membrane when young. The second is a Hebeloma, too poor a
specimen to identify, growing under Lime. The third is the remains of the
Amethyst Deceiver. See 22 Sep for
this species in its prime.

Continuing through the woods, we found this Autumn Chanterelle,
Cantharellus tubaeformis (left), and another kind of Honey Fungus (right) on
Birch, either Armillaria gallica or A borealis. The black "bootlaces" or
rhizoids by which fungi of this genus spread were noticed on the trunk of the
tree.

The Brown Birch Bolete, left, was encountered many times, although there was
a lot of difficulty in getting it to turn blue when cut, and one specimen turned
pink. We were shown how the tubes of Leccinum species such as this can easily be
separated from the cap flesh, while in Boletus species this is not so.
Also Leccinums have tufts of scales on the stem whereas Boleti have a network.
On the right is a poor shot of Jelly Babies, Leotia lubrica.